


Good Morning, Birthday Girl

by Green



Series: Love is Thick [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Backstory, Birthday Presents, Gen, Good Peter Hale, Peter Hale is Stiles's bio dad, Young Stiles, past Peter Hale/Claudia Stilinski - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8812780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green/pseuds/Green
Summary: Stiles turns 10.





	

**Author's Note:**

> still unbeta'd.

She's waiting in the morning by the phone and he calls exactly on time. Ten o'clock to the second, practically.

 

"Good morning, birthday girl," Peter says before she can even say 'hello'.

 

She smiles shyly into the phone. "Good morning, Daddy," she whispers. The sheriff is upstairs, still asleep, but she doesn't take the chance of him hearing.

 

Peter's smile is apparent even over the phone. "Go to the door, you've got a present coming," he says.

 

Stiles runs to the door, sliding part of the way with her socked feet. She peeks out and sees someone standing there with two bright boxes, one purple and one green, her favorite colors. She opens the door and takes the boxes in her arms. She knows she's supposed to tip, but the boy just winks at her. She knows him — his name is Derek and he's Peter's nephew. That means… he's her cousin. She's happy about having more family, but right now she wants to get back to Peter. "Thank you, Derek," she tells him before slamming the door in his face and running back to the phone with her packages.

 

He laughs when she picks it up. "Go ahead and open them, sweetheart."

 

"Okay, the big one first," she says, because she knows the better presents are always in the smaller boxes so she wants to save it for last. The bigger box's lid picks right up and inside there are ten cupcakes, all different kinds, all fancy. Fancier than the cupcakes the local bakery sells. "These look too pretty to eat!"

 

"You should smell them and see if you can say that again," Peter says with another laugh.

 

Stiles puts her nose in the box and gets a good whiff. They smell incredible. Her mouth waters and her stomach grumbles for them. "Yeah, I can't say that. But now I have to choose which to eat first."

 

"There's a key lime cupcake," Peter tells her.

 

Stiles squeals and searches it out. "My favorite."

 

She tries to savor it, but she basically gobbles the cupcake down, it's so good. She's licking light green frosting off her fingers when she remembers there's another box to open.

 

She makes sure her fingers are clean before she picks it up again. "Now opening box number two," she tells him.

 

"Let me tell you a story first," Peter says.

 

"Does it start with 'Once upon a time'? Because it's still morning. You could save that for bedtime, though," she teases him. 

 

He huffs a laugh. "No, this is a true story. It happened… well, shortly after you were made. Your mother and I were saying goodbye. I was on my way to start grad school and your mom wanted us to do something. She had something to give me and had me give her something in exchange. They both had to be things that were important to us, and promise to take care of them. Your mother… Claudia knew, I think, that she was pregnant with you. So really, I was giving her two things to take care of."

 

Stiles runs her hands over the unopened box and listens closely to the story.

 

"She gave me this and told me it's something she had for years, and was her mother's, your grandmother's, given by your grandfather. She talked about how we'd always carry each other with us wherever we go. I didn't know at the time how much of me she was keeping, but I gave her my father's watch and she gave me this. Okay, open it. But be sure to read the card."

 

Stiles has a moment to think about what her life would have been like if she'd known from the beginning that she was a Hale. Not just a Hale, though they are a well-respected family (and rich, but her mom taught her not to say stuff like that… even if it was true), but Peter's daughter. What if her mom had never married the sheriff?

 

"Wait," she says, whispering. "If you had known about me… would you have married my mom?"

 

Peter sighs. "No. Well, if she had wanted, yes. But she wouldn't have wanted to, and I wouldn't have either. We were best friends, and loved each other very much, but it wasn't the kind of love that leads to a happy marriage. I was never in love with her."

 

"But you were… with her," Stiles points out, frowning at the box she still hasn't opened. 

 

Peter laughs. "Well, yes. Sort of. Once. One night. It was after a bad breakup, and I was helping her drown her sorrows, and she felt bad and I wanted to make her feel beautiful and good again. So yes, we... had sex. But only then. Enough to give us you."

 

Stiles thinks about this for a moment, then nods to herself. "Okay, opening for real this time," she says, and takes the lid off the box. There's a piece of cardstock on top of the thing inside, and she pulls it out to read it. [The writing is funny. Like something that would get red ink corrections from a teacher.](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/49493) But as she reads it, she decides she kind of likes the way it's put together. And she understands it. 

 

In the box now is a necklace, coiled upon itself, a silver heart locket that she opens, hoping to see a picture. Instead, inside the heart is another heart, and on the inside of the locket are the words _'here is the deepest secret nobody knows'_.

 

It's perfect. It's… it means more than the poem to her. It's the secret she has, that Peter is hers. The secret she holds in her heart, that she has his heart as well. The love so deep it's in her bones.

 

She thinks that even when it comes out that Peter is her dad, even after they get things fixed so she can live with him and they can be together, there will still be an element of secret. Because she doesn't want to share this with anyone, the way she feels. How much she loves him.

 

She carefully replaces the mini heart inside the locket and looks at the card again.

 

"Whatever a sun will always sing is you. I like that," she says.

 

Peter is quiet for a moment. Then, "You are whatever a moon has always meant." There is weight to the words, like they mean more to him than pretty words.

 

She puts everything down so she can grip the phone with both hands. She closes her eyes, overwhelmed suddenly by her emotion for him, and whispers, "I love you so much, Daddy."

 

"I love you, too. I have an appointment with a judge, though. I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

 

"A judge? Are you in trouble?" she asks.

 

"No, baby. I'm getting an order for a paternity test, so the sheriff can't refuse to let you have it. And once we get the proof, we can move forward."

 

She likes that. Move forward. Move on with their lives. She can't wait to be with him all the time.

 

"Happy birthday again, sweetheart. Next year I promise, we'll have a real birthday for you."

 

"This was perfect," she says quietly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
